Ad Astra Per Aspera
by victoriansass
Summary: AU Series 8 vignettes/snippets. The journey of Clara and the 11th Doctor through the adventures of Series 8. Clara Oswald, time travelling English teacher, has a few things to teach the Doctor about trust and honesty. The Doctor fears more than anything that she'll become too much like him. (Eventual Whouffle)


Early evening, Christmas Day. Clara should be sat with her nan, comfortably curled up with a glass of Prosecco and a traditionally dramatic episode of Eastenders. She should be listening to Mrs Oswald's familiar laments about how bad things always happened to these poor people at Christmas whilst her dad huffed in the background, fiddling with the digital radio they'd bought him. Instead, Clara stood on the muddy banks of the River Thames in 1800 and something, battered and bruised in every way and watching the Doctor shout greetings at an anachronistic T-Rex. The residents of Albert Square had it easy in comparison.

At least they got a bit of sympathy. All Clara had were questions and, unsurprisingly, she wasn't the only one.

"What's happened to him?" Vastra pressed as they hurried towards the Doctor who was staggering perilously close to the water's edge.

"It's a long story. A really, _really_ long story."

One that Clara didn't feel like repeating in its entirety right now, not when she hadn't even had time to stop and breathe.

The Doctor didn't seem to notice the way Clara and Vastra grabbed his arms, steering him none too gently away from anything he could hurt himself on. Instead he looked at them with a feverish enthusiasm, his grin bordering on wild.

"Ooo, is there a story?" he asked merrily, talking even faster than normal. "I love a story. I bet Gladis here does too."

Jenny - realising that a flailing Time Lord was as slippery as a fish - dashed over to help them. She frowned.

"Gladis?"

"The T-Rex. It's her name. Well the name I just gave her. They don't actually have names but it seemed rude to just call her 'T-Rex' and she looks like a Gladis, don't you think?"

Jenny smiled and nodded slowly as though he'd gone completely bonkers.

Not that there was anything unusual in the Doctor wanting to name a T-Rex - he'd done stranger things - but the glazed look in his eyes and the manic energy in every muscle twitch was nowhere near normal. It had Clara deeply worried; what had they done to him? The Time Lords were supposed to have saved him but she honestly wasn't sure that they hadn't broken him instead. This wasn't the Doctor. He didn't seem sure who he was. He didn't know how to fly the TARDIS properly. He didn't even know her name.

She was keeping a tight lid on how much that hurt.

"Doctor," her tone was all gentle insistence, like you might use on a sick but disobedient child, "let's just get you somewhere quiet, okay?"

She looked to Vastra with a silent plea and the Silurian quickly nodded, instructing Strax to fetch the coach closer.

"But I can't leave Gladis!" The Doctor threw his arms up in protest. "Who will she talk to then, eh? None of you lot speak dinosaur. Look at you with all your not speaking dinosaur and swaying."

"We're not swaying," Clara insisted, "you are."

"No, I'm not. My balance is impeccable."

He stumbled immediately to one side, bashing into her and nearly knocking her off her feet. Whether it was instinctual or a triggered memory, the Doctor grabbed her close to stop her falling, just as he'd once done when she'd almost slipped over that cliff. Finally he was still, holding her too long without seeming to realise that she'd gone stiff in his arms from the uncertain tension of the moment.

Everyone was looking at them. Vastra, Jenny, Strax. The crowd of onlookers, watching them and muttering. Even the T-Rex had gone quiet.

When the Doctor drew back he didn't seem to notice though, smiling at her as his hand went to her cheek.

"I know who you are," he said as though that was a remarkable thing, serenity in his expression at last. "I know you. You're my Impossible Girl."

He regarded at her with such naked adoration that Clara could do nothing but smile in return. Her Doctor. He was still there after all.

Then his face fell into a frown and hers mirrored it.

"I don't remember there being two of you."

That threw her, a sudden thought of echoes springing to mind. It was enough of a distraction that she missed catching him as he crumpled unexpectedly to the floor. Not caring about the mud, Clara knelt down, drawing his head into her lap and brushing his hair off his forehead. A heavy sigh left her lips.

"What's happened to him?" Jenny asked. "Is he sick?"

"I don't know." Clara's voice was tight with too many emotions, none of which she'd had a chance to sort out - shock, worry, frustration, grief, anger. She needed time. "He was old. Dying. Then they gave him this...this golden energy."

Vastra's interest was all but visible.

"They?"

Clara looked up at her, eyes hoping for answers.

"The Time Lords. I asked them to save him and they did this."

Whatever ideas that gave Vastra, she remained tight lipped, unwilling to share them in public.

* * *

><p>Clara was trying to be patient, really she was, but her patience had been stretched to its limits in the last twenty four hours and frustration had her frayed. After all the trouble he'd put her through, couldn't he be an easy patient?<p>

As the Doctor bounced around the bedroom like a toddler on a phenomenal sugar high, the answer was apparently 'no'.

"Doctor, you're not well," she pleaded again as she and Jenny tried to corral him towards the bed, "you have to rest."

He had allowed them to get him out of his coat and waistcoat (bow tie tucked safety in the pocket) but when he realised that this change of clothes meant 'bed' he'd immediately begun to protest.

"Of course I'm well. Look at me! Look at these cheeks." He darted to evade the women once more, clambering over the bed before pausing to pinch his cheeks, tugging at fresh skin. "See that bounce back? They haven't done that in years. Ooo do yours do that?"

He reached across, pinching Clara's cheek experimentally. She gave him a glare strong enough to fell a tree.

"Ah sorry, personal space. I remember that."

He took a deliberate step back.

Clara meanwhile took a deep breath, repeating to herself the mantra '_calm_'.

"I really think you should rest," she attempted again, part way between insistent and reasonable. She'd never seen him like this. It was both worrying and incredibly annoying.

The Doctor shook his head, wide eyed as though she'd said something dreadful.

"No. No, rest is boring. I don't need rest. See, I can do this!"

He jumped, clicking his heels together, looking briefly pleased before a grimace flooded his face. Wincing, he limped to a perch on the edge of the bed, rubbing grumpily at his knee.

"Still with the iffy knee then. They couldn't have fixed the knee?" He gestured to it with both hands. "That is just shoddy workmanship."

Clara shared an exasperated glance with Jenny before Vastra swept in to rescue them.

* * *

><p>Clara wasn't sure if the Doctor was asleep or unconscious this time. Either way he was still and quiet and that at last gave her time to think. Part of her furious with him, part was confused and another was just relieved to have him back. She still wasn't sure which feeling was going to win out in the end. Probably a mixture. Slap him first for being an idiot and then hug him after. That's how things seemed to go with them.<p>

Whilst Clara tucked him in, Vastra stood slightly to one side, a picture of detached observation. That irritated Clara too, but she said nothing, knowing she was just tired and feeling churlish. As she smoothed the sheet over the Doctor's chest, she could feel his hearts still racing and when he sighed small puffs of golden air slipped from between his lips. He was slightly sweaty now too, sweaty but shivering, like he was in the grip of a fever. She suspected it wasn't anything so simple.

"You know what regeneration is, yes?"

Clara glanced up, not liking the cool, thoughtful look on Vastra's face. Her words were often tricks and Clara had had quite enough of those for one day.

"Yes," she said shortly, too drained to play guessing games. "But he didn't regenerate."

Vastra took no offence at her tone, remaining as implacable as ever.

"Obviously. But the energy required for the process can also be used to heal. It would seem that at your appeal the Time Lords gave him a rather massive dose."

"Is that what's making him like this?"

"Most probably yes. He's filled with excess energy and his body is attempting to process the remains out to achieve a more normal equilibrium. I suspect it will be some days until he is more like himself again."

"But he'll be all right?"

"Hopefully."

Did she know how discouraging that sounded?

The Doctor coughed, more energy escaping, his body momentarily caught in an arched spasm until Clara managed to settle him once more. She'd no idea how much she was helping but she wasn't the sort who sat by and did nothing, particularly when he looked so awful. Worse than she'd ever seen him in fact, worse than the fragile old man she'd met. At least he still had his mind.

"Why would they do this?"

"Because you asked."

Clara gave Vastra a dry look, not believing for a moment that it was that simple. Nothing about this had been simple.

Vastra conceded the silent point with a nod.

"Because they have need of him and you convinced them of that. They're better off with this man alive and believing that he owes them a debt." She looked troubled. "His sense of responsibility has often been a powerful motivator."

Yes, it had and Clara was suddenly concerned too; what exactly would he require motivating to do?

"What did you say to them?" Vastra asked.

"I don't remember." That was a transparent lie but the Silurian let it go.

"Well, whatever your words they were obviously compelling. You say he was old when you returned to him?"

"I went back twice." She still didn't feel the need to furnish Vastra with the exact details, particularly not about the Doctor's trick. She hadn't forgiven him for it and the twist in her belly at the memory seemed designed to lock the hurt in. "The first time he looked...I dunno. In his fifties maybe. He said he'd been there three hundred years."

"And when you returned the second time?"

"He was old. Really old. Eighties, nineties…" She paused, a possibility hitting her as she thought that through to its conclusion. "If he looked like he'd aged thirty years in three hundred then to look that old he must…"

"Have been there a very long time," Vastra finished when Clara couldn't. "An individual regeneration can last a Time Lord nearly a millennia, barring accidents."

Clara felt her stomach drop and her heartbeat become a numb echo in her chest.

"But he...he can't have been there nearly a thousand years. He was twelve hundred years old when I met him. A thousand years is like half his lifetime."

It wasn't as though it was impossible, but it felt so wrong. Awfully, horribly wrong. The Doctor trapped somewhere for a thousand years, living through a perpetual war in a tiny little town? It was a cruel fate and it made Clara think worrying things; was he like this because of what _they'd_ done to him, or was he simply unable to cope with it all? Surely even he had his limits. Had she'd done him any favours by getting the Time Lords to save him?

Conflicted - angry but caring, hurt but worried, thinking of her own rights and concerned for him - she brushed her fingers needlessly through his hair once more.

"Come," Vastra said sympathetically. "He's not the only one who needs rest and recuperation. I understand that even in your time, tea is a great healer."

* * *

><p>The Doctor had been missing for three days. Vastra blamed herself - she should have had Strax guard him and it was her own overconfidence that'd caused this. She'd assumed that her mental prowess was infallible and that he was deeply unconscious. But with the Doctor's body on a near drugged up high from the excess of regeneration energy, he'd shaken off the trance she'd placed him in and had scarpered out the window. They'd caught up with him just in time to see the end of the unfortunate dinosaur, before the whiff of an idea had consumed him and he'd dashed (well swam) off again. The Doctor capable of looking after himself of course and he couldn't go too far with the TARDIS in their custody. However, the Doctor was also not himself and goodness knows what trouble he would get himself into if left to his own devices.<p>

Like sending silly cryptic messages.

The ad in the newspaper was clever yet idiotic, and despite her relief Clara was resolutely cross as she took her seat in Mancini's restaurant. Why on earth would he resort to such ridiculous game playing on the off chance that she'd see it? He could've just come to the house or sent her a bloody letter if he wanted to meet up so much. Really, the man seemed almost _designed_ to drive her nuts. If this was a test he could go and shove it up his...

On the bright side as he sat down beside her she noticed that his complexion had lost that feverish sheen from before even if his eyes were still too bright and darting. On the not so bright side he was wearing a ratty coat and smelled like a tramp.

"You're late," she muttered, pretending to be more interested in the menu than him. "And did you have to bring that smell with you?"

"Oh is that me?" he asked, genuinely surprised. "I was wondering what that was."

Clara rolled her eyes.

"It's the coat, idiot. It smells like you borrowed it off a tramp."

The Doctor scowled at her, reaching across and lowering the menu with one finger.

"Have you been following me?"

"No."

"Then how did you know I got it from a tramp?"

"Hang on, you borrowed it from an _actual_ tramp?"

"Not borrowed, no. We swapped it for my socks and lessons on how to start a decent fire. He drove a hard bargain. Wanted my trousers too but I couldn't wander around Victorian London in no trousers."

Clara blinked. He really had lost his marbles.

"You bartered for _that_ coat?"

The Doctor pouted, defensively pulling the offending garment tighter around himself.

"I was chilly."

Deciding that getting side tracked wasn't helping, Clara shook her head.

"Never mind; where have you been?"

"Investigating."

"Investigating. Lovely. And you couldn't have popped in and let me know?"

"No, I was busy. There's odd stuff going on here, Clara. Very odd. Odder than usual."

"Yes and talking of odd…" She drew the newspaper from her lap, slapping it down on the table, the ad that'd brought her here prominently circled. "What do you call this?"

The Doctor glanced at it and nodded.

"Not odd. I thought it was quite clever actually."

"Oh well you would, wouldn't you?" She leaned in, speaking to him in the harsh whisper used by people trying to have a private argument in a public place. "It's not clever, it's ridiculous. Normal people sends notes, not adverts!"

"Oh don't be like that! There was no other way of getting in contact with me and you must've known that if I was investigating I'd be checking the papers. Really Clara, you're too hard on yourself. You shouldn't sell yourself short; it was very clever. And that wasn't a short joke before you get uppity."

It took Clara a brief moment to realise what he was implying and then she glared at him, mouth open, borderline offense in her expression.

"I did _not_ place that ad!"

"Yes, you did."

"No, _you_ did," she prodded at his chest, "and you've clearly forgotten."

The Doctor rolled his eyes. "How did I place it? Does it look like I have any money to place an ad? Blimey Clara, I bartered my socks for this tramp's coat!"

Clara hesitated, anger dissipating in the face of something more worrying than her wounded pride. He had a point. A definite point. Her eyes widened

"But if you didn't place it and I didn't then…?"

However out of it he still was, he cottoned on quickly enough.

"Then it was someone who wanted us to meet up," the Doctor concluded, glancing around suspiciously. "At this restaurant."

Oh dear.


End file.
